The Green Trap Read online

  She took a step into the tiny office and smiled at him. “You are Dr. Cochrane? Paul Cochrane?”

  He put the phone back into its cradle. “Yes.”

  She took in the office with a single sweeping glance: the bookcase filled with journals and reports, the cluttered desk, the full-color poster of the Eagle Nebula’s breathtaking clouds where new stars are born. With a single little nod, as if confirming her expectations, she came fully into the office and sat pertly on one of the two plastic chairs in front of Cochrane’s desk.

  “I’m Elena Sandoval,” she said, her voice a throaty mezzo. “I’m with the Department of Justice.”

  Cochrane blinked. “This has something to do with my brother?”

  Sandoval smiled slightly. It made both cheeks dimple.

  “I’ve been trying to reach his wife,” Cochrane said. “His widow, I mean.” It sounded stupid to him and he thought he’d made a fool of himself.

  “Mrs. Cochrane’s at home, but she’s not taking calls. This has been something of a shock to her.”

  Cochrane nodded. “Me, too.”

  “I suppose so. Of course.”

  “What’s Washington doing in this? Why are you involved?”

  “Actually, it’s the Department of Homeland Security who’s interested in your brother’s murder. I’m just a local field agent.”

  “Homeland Security?”

  “Your brother’s office was ransacked, either just before or just after he was killed.”

  “Ransacked?” Cochrane knew he was making an ass of himself, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Did your brother confide in you? Did he tell you anything about the work he was doing?”

  “Mike’s a biologist, for chrissake! He wasn’t involved in anything dangerous.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “He worked with algae and cyanobacteria—”

  “Cyano…?”

  “Cyanobacteria,” Cochrane repeated.

  “That sounds ominous.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or scowl at her ignorance. “They’re harmless bacteria that produce oxygen.”

  “They’re not dangerous, then?”

  Cochrane shook his head. “They’re on our side.”

  Sandoval tilted her head slightly to one side, as if trying to determine if he was telling the truth. Cochrane realized she was very pretty, beautiful even.

  “Someone murdered your brother for a reason. I think it has something to do with his research.”

  “Mike said he’d hit on something that would make him rich, but—”

  “Something? What?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. Made me go out to Palo Alto to see for myself.”

  “And?” she asked eagerly.

  Cochrane felt his insides go hollow. “I never saw him. The receptionist wouldn’t let me in. He was murdered while I was in the building’s lobby.”

  She pursed her lips, disappointed. “So you didn’t get to see what he was working on.”

  “No. But you should be able to check it out on his computer.”

  “The laptop computer he worked on is missing. Stolen, we presume. His office was thoroughly looted of any paperwork that might have held his notes, his references, anything pertaining to his work.”

  “What the hell were they after?”

  “I was hoping you would know,” said Sandoval.

  Cochrane didn’t know what to say. Then his cell phone began playing Mozart. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket, flicked it open, and put it to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Paul, it’s me.” He instantly recognized the voice of his brother’s widow.

  “Irene! Are you okay?”

  “He’s dead, Paul. Somebody killed Mike.”

  Glancing at Sandoval, who turned away slightly and pointedly stared out the window, Cochrane said, “I know. I was there when it happened. I went to your house.”

  “The police told me. I should have phoned you earlier, Paul, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

  He could hear the tears in her voice. “It’s okay, Irene. I was starting to worry about you, though.”

  “I’m fine. Well, not really, but I’m all right. I got home from the school and there were a pair of police detectives on the front steps. That’s how I found out.”

  “I must have just missed you,” Cochrane said. Sandoval turned in her chair and studied the spines of the Astrophysical Journals on the top shelf of his bookcase.

  “My carpool dropped me off around five-thirty. We had a teachers’ meeting after classes.”

  You don’t need to give me an alibi, Cochrane thought. Aloud, he said, “Lousy thing to come home to.”

  Irene sighed heavily and Cochrane realized she must be struggling to hold herself together.

  “I’ll come out there tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll help with the funeral arrangements and all that.”

  “Oh, Paul, I’d appreciate that so much! I just can’t seem to think straight for two minutes in a row. I’m such a mess.”

  “I’ll be there, Irene. Tomorrow. Soon’s I can make it.”

  “Thank you, Paul. Thank you.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “Tomorrow. Yes. Goodbye, Paul.”

  “Goodbye.”

  He clicked the phone shut. Sandoval focused her green eyes on him. “Would you mind if I went with you? Perhaps your brother kept some records or files at home.”

  “Go with me?”

  “It’s important that we discover what he was working on. Whatever it was, it got him killed.”

  “I can’t believe that—”

  “Please, Dr. Cochrane,” she said, her green eyes pleading. “Let me go with you. Please. I’d be so grateful.”

  Cochrane shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” He found himself thinking, Fly out there with this good-looking woman? Sure, why the hell not?

  PALO ALTO:

  COCHRANE RESIDENCE

  Cochrane noticed that Sandoval got attentive glances from men at the airport. And from women, too. Striding through the corridors with her, sitting next to her on the plane, Cochrane caught a definite whiff of admiration from the men. For a nerd you’re doing okay, they seemed to be saying. She’s a keeper.

  Sandoval had made the flight arrangements for the two of them, to San Jose. “It’s closer than San Francisco,” she had explained. “Smaller airport, easier to get in and out.” She’d made the rental car reservation, as well. No Corolla for her; she drove a four-door sandy gold Infiniti north on Highway 101, tooling past the massive old dirigible hangar at Moffett Field well above the legal speed limit.

  “It might be best if you introduce me as a friend,” she said, her eyes on the massive eighteen-wheelers whooshing past. “The family might get nervous if they realize I’m a federal agent.”

  Cochrane nodded easily. He pictured the looks on their faces when he told Irene and the others that Sandoval was his girlfriend. It made him smile.

  “You think that’s funny?” she asked.

  “I think it’s cool,” he replied.

  She smiled back at him.

  He phoned Irene as they neared Palo Alto, and she was at the front door of the house when they pulled onto the driveway: a slightly fleshy woman with frizzy dark hair hanging loosely and tiny, squinting eyes magnified by a pair of square heavy-rimmed glasses. Irene was wearing a bulky sweater and shapeless jeans, with flat sandals. She looked tired, spiritless. For the first time Cochrane noticed that her hair was flecked with gray.

  As they got out of the car, he saw that Irene was surprised by Sandoval. Surprised and immediately tense, from the way her jaw set. Suspicion? he wondered. Or guilt? Or maybe just the automatic competitive instinct of a woman.

  He went to his sister-in-law and embraced her, then turned to Sandoval.

  “Irene, this is Elena Sandoval,” he began.

  Sandoval smiled and extended her hand. “I thought it would be best if Paul didn’t make this
trip by himself. I’m so sorry about your husband.”

  “You knew him?” Irene asked, her voice sharp.

  “No, but if he’s anything like Paul he must have been a very special kind of man.”

  Cochrane felt his cheeks redden.

  Irene looked from her to Cochrane. “I thought you’d be staying here at the house,” she muttered.

  “We have reservations at the Marriott,” said Sandoval. It was news to Cochrane.

  Almost grudgingly Irene took them inside and offered them sandwiches and beer. From the way she talked directly to him and almost totally ignored Sandoval, Cochrane saw that his sister-in-law didn’t trust this woman. Maybe I shouldn’t, either, he thought briefly. Then he dismissed the idea. She’s a federal agent, for god’s sake. Don’t get paranoid.

  They stayed with Irene all afternoon. She had already contacted the local funeral parlor and Cochrane phoned the director to talk about the arrangements. Mike’s body had just been released from the police morgue, the man explained in sibilant whispers: they had performed an autopsy, standard practice in homicides. The funeral was scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday.

  “Tomorrow?” Cochrane asked, surprised. “What about the wake?”

  “Mrs. Cochrane said she didn’t desire to have a viewing.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cochrane said. Then, placing his palm over the phone, he called to his sister-in-law across the living room. “No wake?”

  Irene shook her head. “The sooner this is over with, the better.”

  “But won’t his friends—”

  “His friends are mostly from the lab. They’re not the type to spend an evening pretending to be sad.”

  Cochrane almost flinched from the acid in her tone, the unforgiving expression on her face. He told the funeral director to go ahead with his plans for tomorrow, then hung up the phone.

  When they had finished the sandwiches Irene had made and she was carrying their lunch trays back to the kitchen, Sandoval leaned close and whispered, “Can you get her to let you look at his computer?”

  Irene came back into the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel, and sat on the sofa beside him.

  Feeling awkward, Cochrane asked, “Could I go up to his office, Irene? There might be something to give us a lead on who killed Mike.”

  “The police went through the whole house,” Irene replied. “I barely got things back in order before you arrived.”

  “Did they find anything?” Sandoval asked.

  Irene stared at her coldly. “If they did, they didn’t tell me.” She turned back to Cochrane. “Come on, Paul, I’ll take you up there.”

  Sandoval caught the definite emphasis on you. “I can wait down here,” she said compliantly.

  Following Irene up the stairs, Cochrane could feel the hostility radiating from his sister-in-law. Why? he asked himself.

  Irene led him down the hall and opened the door to Mike’s study. It was a small room that would have been a nursery or a child’s bedroom in another home. Two walls were lined with bookshelves and there was a handsome dark walnut desk placed at an angle, with the room’s two windows behind it and a pair of bottle-green leather armchairs in front of it. Except for a telephone, the desk was bare. A flat-screen TV was mounted on the fourth wall, opposite the desk.

  A movie set, Cochrane immediately thought. Just like Mike. He created a make-believe office for himself. He didn’t do any work here. He couldn’t. This is where he got away from everything, everybody—including his wife.

  “Didn’t he have a computer here?” he asked.

  “He used a laptop. Took it to work with him,” said Irene.

  Cochrane nodded, thinking, Maybe I should phone that detective and ask him about the laptop.

  Irene closed the door softly, then leaned against it, partially obscuring a poster that Mike had tacked up on the back of the door: a photograph of a balding, smiling man sitting by a window. Across the top of the poster, in handwriting, was scrawled, Melvin Calvin, 1911–1997.

  “Why’d you bring her?” Irene hissed, her voice low, venomous.

  Cochrane blinked at her. “She’s… we’re friends.”

  “Friends.”

  “It’s not really serious,” Cochrane said, almost like an apology.

  Irene softened. She put both her hands on Cochrane’s shoulders, leaned her head against his chest.

  “Oh, Paul. I shouldn’t… I mean… she just took me by surprise. I never expected you to…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You never expected me to have a good-looking girlfriend?”

  She looked up at him. Cochrane saw tears in her eyes. “Mike was fooling around.”

  “Mike?”

  “He was seeing somebody, I know he was.”

  “Mike wouldn’t do that.”

  “The hell he wouldn’t!” Irene’s face went hard, bitter. “He’d screwed around before. One-night stands. When he was out of town, on a trip to some conference or on company business. It went on for years.”

  Cochrane wondered why he felt shocked. Mike was outgoing, always had an eye for women. But cheating on his wife?

  “There wasn’t anything I could do about it. He always came home to me. If I said anything about it he’d slap me around.”

  “Mike hit you?”

  “Never on the face,” Irene replied. “He was too smart for that. He knew my brothers would beat the crap out of him if they found out he’d touched me.”

  “I can’t…” Cochrane stopped himself. You know Mike’s temper, he told himself. He socked you often enough.

  “I thought he’d broke my ribs once,” Irene went on. “Hurt me to breathe for a couple weeks.”

  “You should have called me,” Cochrane said. It sounded lame, he knew.

  “There was nothing you could do about it. I just worried he’d bring home AIDS or chlamydia or something.”

  I don’t want to know about this! Cochrane screamed silently. But Irene went on.

  “The past few months, though, he started seeing some bitch here locally. Maybe she worked at the lab with him, I don’t know.”

  “Are you certain?” Cochrane heard himself ask.

  Irene nodded. “They must’ve had a fight and she killed him. Or maybe she was married and her husband found out about them.”

  “Did you tell the police about it?”

  “No! That’s none of their damned business.”

  “But if it led to Mike’s murder—”

  “So what? He’s dead and that’s that. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Cochrane stared at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. But in his mind he heard a sardonic voice reminding him that Mike’s company insurance would probably take care of Irene for a long time.

  She won’t miss him, he told himself. She won’t miss him at all. Nobody will.

  PALO ALTO:

  MARRIOTT RESIDENCE INN

  I reserved two rooms for us,” Sandoval said as they drove away from Irene’s house.

  Cochrane felt a pang of disappointment, but the rational part of his mind told him that he’d been foolish to expect anything more. She’s gorgeous, but she’s a federal agent. Her only interest in me is about Mike’s murder.

  “Did you get a chance to get into his computer?” she asked, driving slowly through urban streets lined with neat little houses and green lawns.

  “His laptop wasn’t there. Irene said he took it to his office. The police must have taken it.”

  Sandoval shook her head without taking her attention from her driving. “There wasn’t any laptop in his office. Whoever killed him must have taken it.”

  “Irene thinks Mike was murdered by a jealous husband,” Cochrane

  She smiled. “So that’s the reason for the bad vibes. One look at me and she thought about her husband’s screwing around.”

  “That’s kind of cold-blooded, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t. Your sister-in-law’s a hot-blooded woman. Watch yourself with her.”<
br />
  “What?”

  “It’s a good thing I came with you. You need federal protection.”

  Cochrane felt his jaw drop open. Sandoval laughed.

  The Marriott Residence Inn was a trio of imitation Spanish Colonial–style three-story buildings, sandy tan with red tile roofing, set back from El Camino Real, where Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos adjoined. As they drove up to the hotel’s entrance, he found himself wondering again why a federal agent should be interested in Mike.

  Before he could ask her, though, she had parked in the driveway and popped the car’s trunk. Cochrane got out and went to the back of the car. By the time he had pulled out his roll-on suitcase and slung his laptop over his shoulder, Sandoval was already through the lobby’s glass doors, a single shapeless tote bag in one hand. He slammed the trunk shut.

  As he came up to the registration desk, Sandoval said smilingly, “I know a neat little sushi place not far from here. Interested?”

  “Sure,” he replied automatically.

  “Okay. Give me half an hour to unpack and shower. I’ll meet you right here.”

  Cochrane was impressed with his mini-suite. It included a kitchen, a sofa, high-speed Internet access, and even a gas-fed fireplace. The government must be paying for this, he thought. Nobody had asked to see his credit card. He set up his laptop on the coffee table, checked his sparse e-mail, and still was back down in the lobby before Sandoval.

  She came out of the elevator dressed in a comfortable pair of off-white slacks and a loose rose-pink blouse with a modest collared neckline. Still she looked elegantly attractive. Cochrane couldn’t help smiling as they walked together out to the parking lot.

  The sushi bar was noisy with customers’ laughter and conversation and the Japanese chefs yelling back and forth to one another. A busy place, Cochrane saw. Country music, of all things, wailing out of the ceiling speakers. The spicy tang of ginger and other aromas in the air. Three TV sets, all muted and tuned to sports shows. Locals crowded the bar, so he and Sandoval took a small table off in the shadows. Cloth napkins, he noticed. He began to polish his eyeglasses as a waitress took their order for hot sake.

  “So what exactly was your brother working on?” she asked, after a first sip from the tiny ceramic cup.